Unemployment Policy in Prewar Japan: How Progressive Was Japanese Social Policy?

Abstract

Most authorities have for a long time judged social policy for the poor in prewar Japan to have been backward but, since about the 1980s, scholars have begun to conclude that Japanese social policy was as progressive as that in Western countries.They argue that Japanese prewar social policy was not only more progressive, but was implemented earlier especially construction relief works for the unemployed and poor farmers.This paper examines Japan's unemployment policy in the 1920s and 1930s with the aim of understanding the effectiveness of government public works policy. My research reveals that not only did public construction relief works for the unemployed not increase the total number of employed workers, but that Japan's unemployment benefit policy was realized only through minor benefits provided by large companies as a result of the absence of any kind of state-run unemployment insurance or assistance programmes. Following the end of World War I, capitalistic countries were forced to adopt relief policy measures to deal with the increasing numbers of unemployed workers. These countries organized the International Labour Office (ILO), through which they co-operated together through many treaties and exchanged recommendations for labour and unemployment policy measures. Encouraged by such international co-operation, most of the member countries introduced unemployment insurance programmes, established national assistance programmes, and implemented public construction works during the 1920s and 1930s. Japan attempted to enhance its position in the international community through participation in ILO as well as the League of Nations as one of the so-called 'big eight' countries in the world. However, Japan was not positively inclined to introduce labour and unemployment policy measures